9+ Best Rust Textures

Every artist working in the arena of digital art will know that one of their most indispensable tools is their texture collection. This is basically a bunch of images that capture the unique surface qualities of different materials.You then apply them to your pictures or mesh them to your character designs for a realistic effect.

The most common textures include rough paper, fur or hair, wood, and skin textures. Rusted metal can take on very interesting and diverse qualities that aren’t easily replicated with other rough-texture substitutes.

To help you out, we offer here a collection of free templates for a convincing rusty texture. You can download them as free PSD, PNG, or Vector files or license (for a minimal fee) and download them in higher-resolution formats like TIFF.

Metal Rust Texture

Seamless Rust Texture

Free Vector Rust Texture

Dark Rust Texture

Red Rust Texture

How to Use These Templates

Assuming you know how to do a simple Photoshop overlay or how to create texture maps in other graphic art software, you can start to see the possibilities of these texture templates, especially our offering of rust metal texture templates.

Metal is an endlessly versatile element, and you likely already have a series of shiny metal templates. To create rust, you might have innovated by using other rough-texture materials layered over each other.

Not all rust patterns are the same, however, and you might need a certain “feel” or configuration depending on your needs. To that end, we have provided a range of templates for different kinds of rust on metallic surfaces. Here are a few templates our website offers:

Metal Rust Texture. An all-purpose kind of template, not too overdone on the rust. Great for adding a tinge of neglect or a touch of disuse, e.g., an old suit of armor.

Seamless Rust Texture. Super useful for covering large areas of graphic without stretching or resizing. Simply copy-paste this template and patch over the area. Used the same way as marble textures to cover whole buildings, especially in video game design.

Dark Rust Texture. For a dramatic feel. Think the armored hide of some ancient metallic monster.

Grunge Rust Texture

Rust Drip Texture

Steel Rust Texture

High Resolution Rust Texture

White Metal Rust Texture

Rust Drip Texture. Adds the perfect touch of time passing and gloom descending. Depending on how you apply this template, you might also successfully create a psychological-dramatic effect.

Steel Rust Texture. Think weather-worn spaceships.

High Resolution Rust Texture. Great for close-ups of old metallic surfaces.

White Metal Rust Texture. Another winner for close-ups. This sets a different feel from the black texture but easily as impressive.

Other Ways to Use These Templates

The most common use is to superimpose these textures to an image to bring it to life.

But notice the different effects each rusted metal surface evokes? Use that to your advantage. Apply these templates to homemade greeting cards, themed-party invitations, photo quotes, etc., to add an interesting effect to an otherwise ordinary photograph or layout, much like a filter.

(The higher-res the image, the better.)

They are readily available in the file types you need, to use them immediately.